The Andalusia Sting Ray swim team kicks off the season on June 9 at the Water World Classic in Dothan.

“In previous years, the meet was open to only USA registered swimmers,” senior head coach Gavin Donaldson said. “This year, Dothan has opened the meet up to non-USA registered swimmers as well. This gives our team an opportunity to compete against Dothan prior to our District meet in July. Typically, we swim against the Troy program. With the Water World Classic, it will provide different levels of competition that we might not see otherwise.”

Donaldson said that the swimmers will compete in several different events.

“Swimmers can swim five different individual events per day and one relay each day,” Donaldson said. “Swimmer events are chosen by their respective coach on their ability to swim that stroke legally. This meet will represent 100-yard events in all four disciplines with a 200-yard freestyle added. ARPA only swimmers will be exposed to new yardage events that are not part of the ARPA format.”

Donaldson said he has seen good things from his swimmers in practice.

“We have had our good days and bad days,” Donaldson said. “Weather has really restricted practice time over the last two weeks, but overall the time we have had in the pool has been very productive. This was seen at our inter-squad meet that was cut short on Tuesday night due to weather. Many good things come out of that meet on times and technique at race-pace speed.”